Hackney NUT attacks Gove’s ‘madcap plan for school holidays’

Education secretary Michael Gove

Long summer holidays are to be scrapped from 2015 as part of a string of reforms laid out in the government’s Deregulation Bill.

The document outlines several new measures aimed at cutting red tape around public services.

Local authorities are to be relieved of even more of their power over schools as fixed term dates become a thing of the past and scheduling power is handed to individual schools and their headteachers.

The minimum of 190 school days will remain, but schools will be given the power to divvy up holidays across the academic year.

Phillippa De’Ath, Director of the Hackney New School, a free school set to open in De Beauvoir in September 2013, has said that parents and staff involved in that school were open to the idea of a longer school day, but the idea of a shorter school holiday proved “less popular”.

The move is consistent with the devolution of power in local authorities brought on by increasing numbers of independently-run schools.

Academies already have more leeway with their term dates, but this measure will extend that freedom to maintained schools.

The move has raised concern among parents who have children in different schools. But the government has said the move is in the interest of handing over control to “heads and teachers who know their parents and pupils best.”

BSix, an independent sixth form in Hackney have already reaped the benefits of more scheduling freedom.

“We’re developing an all-year-round program by default” says headteacher Ken Warman. “We’ll determine how long our school year is. Other schools should too.”

Jamie Duff, who represents the Hackney NUT, insists summer breaks are essential: “Children learn through play and discovery as much as they do through tests and exams.”

He believes that Gove’s “madcap idea” will make childcare and holidays more difficult to arrange and more expensive.

“Yet again” he says, “Gove is putting his privatisation agenda ahead of the needs of children.”